this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2026
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[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 23 points 1 day ago (2 children)

What? Pretty sure Afghanistan was lost too?? Or are we using strategic ambiguity in new ways?

[–] Heikki2@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (3 children)

The way I interpret this is single-handedly lost the war. Afghanistan was over 4 presidents (Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden). The sloppy withdrawal by Biden was die to no planning and a treaty signed by Trump to do so by 2/29/2020.

[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 7 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Trump is the one who unconditionally surrendered Afghanistan. It's on him.

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 1 points 17 hours ago

But still, not winning against Stone Age goat herders for 4 presidents... I don't know man, what was the plan? Bomb the desert again?

[–] bold_atlas@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

If that's the case, then Nixon didn't single handily lose the Vietnam War either.

But let's be real. The Democrat president who inherits this war in 2028 will be the one blamed for loosing it.

[–] BouteilleBrune@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

The sloppy withdrawal by Biden was a treaty signed by Trump to do so by 2/29/2020.

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[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 35 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (12 children)

You yanks REALLY need to lose this one. Your noses need to be rubbed in it. You need to feel the SHIT you put the rest of us though. And you need to get seriously angry at the Israelis and rub THEIR noses in it. You need a big enough shock to CHANGE.

(Like I know most of the people on Lemmy are not Republican idiots. I'm obviously not talking about you personally, but about the «general public opinion» in the US, especially the Republican idiots.)

[–] Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

In America, we punish the incumbents. BoTh PaRtIeS have told their own constituents to fuck off; membership of registered voters is at 30% each. Independents are now 40% of voters.

Whoever wins the election tells the people who elected them to fuck off; so, we vote them out. That's it. The new election winner then tells the people who elected them to fuck off, and so on.

Examples: Biden runs with minimum wage increase as platform, wins, then tells everybody to fuck off.

Trump then runs with "no war" as platform; wins, goes to war and tells his voters to fuck off.

He will be replaced by a Democrat, who will then also tell their voters to fuck off.

Repeat ad nauseam. Neither party does what they are elected to do and are then punished, to be replaced by the other party that will refuse to do what they were elected to do.

We can't vote ourselves out of this, unfortunately.

[–] kreskin@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

He will be replaced by a Democrat, who will then also tell their voters to fuck off.

The real political innovation here is that the Democratic party is telling its voters to fuck off before the next election.

[–] bold_atlas@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

They don't have anything to loose. Another Republican president? Great! They can sit on their asses for four more years writing angry tweets about how offended they are while telling voters to fuck off. Democrats win? Even better! Sit on their asses while insider trading and taking billionaire tributes while telling voters to fuck off. What a great system we have.

[–] MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

I agree with the incumbent part, but exactly how was Biden able to pass minimum wage law but decided not to? It can't go in reconciliation and they didn't have the votes for it in the Senate.

[–] glitchdx@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

I'm sadly forced to work alongside some republican asshats, and let me tell you, they're fucking ecstatic about how the usa military is kicking Iran's ass. Reality has no bearing on them.

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 day ago

They don't care. It's a video game to most Americans. That's what having oceans between you and the bombs does.

[–] brownsugga@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

The US committed a war crime on day one, and Israel has been on a war crime spree since Oct 7.... if this turns into a world war, it'll be that Mitchell and Webb skit.... "are we the baddies?"

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[–] KulunkelBoom@lemmus.org 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's not that he lost... it's not that he started it because putin told him to... it's not even that his moron running the "war department" is an alcohol addled butt sucking asshole...

It's because of all the goddam taxpayer money he threw DOWN THE FUCKING COMMODE on the death merchants. What? Did Raytheon need to clear out some old inventory?

[–] tacoplease@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

Putin didn't get him to start, it was Bibi.

[–] mcv@lemmy.zip 17 points 1 day ago

No one's done that since Nixon? Would you call Afghanistan a victory? Although that was also Trump.

[–] kreskin@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Hows our "Project for a new American century" coming along? Seems it wasnt as easy as just writing down all the things we lusted after and grabbing them via pure hubris.

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

7 wars and a movie... just missing the movie.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I'm sure they'll make a movie about how the war made them sad

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 1 points 23 hours ago

Maybe they needed the ratings for the final war/season to be higher for the movie.

[–] kreskin@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

yes, inevitably casting "principled" god-fearing maga people as the real victims in all of this, who are always calm and dignified, and never ever wanted any violence, but the outcome was forced on them.... by muslim and woke democrat terrorists who were the real epstein pedophiles all along. We can have an AI write this movie in about 5 minutes. I bet Noah Wiley would agree to play Hegseth.

[–] n7gifmdn@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 day ago

Did AI write this article? It repeats itself a lot.

[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 35 points 2 days ago (2 children)

In Afghanistan, Trump unconditionally surrendered to the Taliban, but left Biden to complete the withdrawal. Before that, Iraq was either a loss or a stalemate, depending on what the poorly articulated objectives actually were.

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The last time the US won was WW2.

[–] Omgpwnies@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The US "won" in WW2 because they managed to pick the winning team. There was a significant pro-nazi faction in the country at the time and it wasn't really until Japan attacked Pear Harbour that they really picked a side and went all-in on it. Before that, they were fine with selling stuff to Nazi Germany, and Japan for that matter.

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[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 4 points 1 day ago (3 children)

The allies won WW2. The US alone would have lost.

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[–] 8oow3291d@feddit.dk 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

The wars were won in both cases. Decisively.

Hearts and minds were not won, in either case. There is a good question whether the nationbuilding could even theoretically have succeeded, given how tribal and divided the countries were. IMO it was stupid to try in the first place, especially in Afghanistan.

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[–] FE80@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)
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[–] WraithGear@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

um what? america has only won 2 wars against a guerrilla force of their own terf in the last 100 years.

[–] hume_lemmy@lemmy.ca 204 points 2 days ago (12 children)

I think this article forgets how Trump effectively surrendered Afghanistan to the Taliban the last time around.

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 99 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Also, calling Iraq a win is really stretching things.

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[–] quick_snail@feddit.nl 35 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Every $10 increase in crude translates to roughly 24 cents per gallon at the pump. So we're looking at 25 to 45 cents per gallon — baked in, structural, not going away when the war ends, not going away when the headlines fade, not going away ever.

Can we stop with this narrative that this is somehow a bad thing?

The price of oil has been too low. calculate the cost if externalities, and the price should be close to infinity.

Just stop oil.

[–] 8oow3291d@feddit.dk 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

Food prices are still tied to fossil fuel prices. This will cause a lot of very real pain, among the poorest in the world.

So yes, we need to get to net zero carbon. But there has to be a more humane way than unplanned cold turkey.

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 4 points 1 day ago

It's only cold turkey now because we haven't done it in the last 50 years.

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[–] WanderWisley@lemmy.world 57 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Nixon had the decency to resign, Trump will drive us all 6ft under without any hesitation.

[–] yesman@lemmy.world 70 points 2 days ago (9 children)

Nixon was not decent. The difference was that a Senator (Goldwater) told Nixon point blank that he was getting impeached and the senate had the votes to convict and remove.

Like most government officials "retirement" is getting fired.

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[–] kmartburrito@lemmy.world 84 points 2 days ago (7 children)

He's never been anything but a silver spoon total loser. He's not even a skilled criminal. Fucking bush league in every measure.

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[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 21 points 2 days ago (1 children)

While somehow Biden get's blamed for the fiasco, Trump did order the full withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, essentially a surrender to the Taliban, though he did keep their US bank account held treasury.

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[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

No one wins when people start shooting at each other. There are only different degrees of losing. There is no glory in war, only suffering of the poor for the rich.

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[–] axx@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 day ago

The number of trackers this site wants you to accept and load is insane. I know it's not that unusual these days, but fuck that, i'm not putting up with your clearly malicious interpretation of legitimate interest to see one article.

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